Humble Bundle creator on Ars’ influence and why Linux is important

The Humble Indie Bundles were huge successes, and Jefferey Rosen from Wolfire …

The Humble Bundles were both huge hits, ultimately bringing in over $3 million in combined revenue. The smaller games released on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, combined with a lack of DRM and the ability to pay whatever you like, created the perfect storm. During his talk at the Game Developers Conference, Jeffrey Rosen even brought up how Ars Technica gave them the nudge needed to finish the first bundle.

"Mike Thompson in particular was one of the few journalists who immediately saw the potential in the Humble Bundle and actually worked hard to write a good article about it, rather than giving me the cold shoulder," Rosen said. "After that, I had no choice but to actually finish coding it—it was getting dangerously close to turning into vaporware!"

The other secret to getting noticed was the support across multiple platforms. "Contributions from Mac and Linux users doubled our revenue for the Humble Indie Bundle," Rosen told Ars after his talk. "Mac and Linux gamers are historically underserved by game developers, so they really appreciate the extra effort, and help you back disproportionately."

Rosen pointed out that Linux users were the most generous in terms of what they were willing to pay for the games. "It is sad that being Windows-exclusive is the norm and it's actually newsworthy when a developer supports another platform," he said.

Going above and beyond for the customers

He also pointed out that customer service was an important part of what the developers did. They had many people, including the developers themselves, sitting at computers, live-chatting with customers to fix their problems, and answering e-mails. You could download your games via a direct link or via bittorrent. If you felt they were doing a good job, you could always go back to the site to increase the amount you paid for the bundle. The Humble Bundle succeeded because the developers decided to be good guys about every aspect of the user experience, hoping people would reward that behavior. As we saw, the gamers certainly did.

There will of course be a third bundle, and Rosen said that he's looking forward to putting fewer "known" games in the bundle to get the word out on titles people may not have heard of, but it's also important to keep the quality of the games high. Until then, he can take a small break knowing that he raised a large amount of money for charity, and found a new way to promote and sell independent games.

These guys are the reasons why I support Indie game Devs. They only want what they honestly feel they deserve for making thier creations. You won't see EA or Activision giving a game to all those that thought they were buying a legit game only to find out it was a clone. Or asking for a fair price for their games

Rosen pointed out that Linux users were the most generous in terms of what they were willing to pay for the games.

As crazy as it sounds, this is the direct effect of the media's attention on the bundle. For instance, /. had a number of readers who purchased it not because they were interested in playing games, but because they wanted to "beat" the Windows average price.

Personally, I got the Humble Indie Bundle #2, but I already owned 3 of the 5 games in it, so I certainly wasn't going to pay anywhere near full price for it.

Rosen pointed out that Linux users were the most generous in terms of what they were willing to pay for the games.

As crazy as it sounds, this is the direct effect of the media's attention on the bundle. For instance, /. had a number of people purchase it not because they were interested in playing games, but because they wanted to "beat" the Windows average price.

yes. That's it. People bought the games for the sole purpose of making Windows users look bad.

I own copies of both bundles, well paid for, and I don't even really play most of the games included in them; I purchased them to vote with my dollars to support the model and the ideals.

Me too. I have played 2 or 3 of the games and really liked them (especially Machinarium), but even though I haven't had time to try the others, I still feel like I got a good deal and am happy to support this in the future.

Rosen pointed out that Linux users were the most generous in terms of what they were willing to pay for the games.

As crazy as it sounds, this is the direct effect of the media's attention on the bundle. For instance, /. had a number of people purchase it not because they were interested in playing games, but because they wanted to "beat" the Windows average price.

yes. That's it. People bought the games for the sole purpose of making Windows users look bad.

That wasn't the only reason. Some Linux users purchased these games even though they didn't want them in hopes that it would convince other game companies to make games for Linux.

I digress. There's one more thing to take into account. A statistical outlier has a much larger effect on an average made out of less numbers. If I take 0, 5, and 10 then add 100 to it, the average changes from 5 to 28.75. If I take 0, 0, 5, 5, 10, 10 then add 100 to it, the average changes from 5 to 18.571....

Rosen pointed out that Linux users were the most generous in terms of what they were willing to pay for the games.

As crazy as it sounds, this is the direct effect of the media's attention on the bundle. For instance, /. had a number of people purchase it not because they were interested in playing games, but because they wanted to "beat" the Windows average price.

yes. That's it. People bought the games for the sole purpose of making Windows users look bad.

I don't think there was any intent or desre to make Windows users look bad, but rather make the developers and media that promote Windows-exclusive gaming look bad. If they could get the average price higher than that for Windows games, it would suggest that the demand for Linux/Mac games is high enough to be a worthwhile investment.

And when more avenues of development are explored, more products are created. And when more games are available, everybody wins.

I hope the next bundle is more novel as Jeffrey hints. I love the idea and donated generously (for my budget) both times, but I can't say I got a ton of fun from actual gameplay. Don't get me wrong, some excellent games were included (Braid, Machinarium, World of Goo), but I already owned them.

Lugaru was probably the only title I got from the bundles and played to completion. It's a kind of touchy, and killing wolves requires using sort of a cheap exploit. But overall it's some great action, best hand combat since Oni, and I look forward to the successor, Overgrowth.

Revenge of the Titans just seemed bland to me, especially after playing Defense Grid. And Cortex Command was a mess: very incomplete, hard to read, hard to control, and capricious.

Penumbra I need to get back to. I'm not usually a horror fan, but I love good atmospherics, and that has them in spades.

Super Meat Boy would be cool as the "known" in the next bundle. It's ridiculously good (and difficult, in the right ways). More people should play it.

Personally, I got the Humble Indie Bundle #2, but I already owned 3 of the 5 games in it, so I certainly wasn't going to pay anywhere near full price for it.

I think I owned Braid, so I just dropped about $10 off the asking price. However, when they announced they were including Bundle #1 for anyone who helped increase the average, I went back and doubled-down since I thought that was an amazing show of generosity back.

"I digress. There's one more thing to take into account. A statistical outlier has a much larger effect on an average made out of less numbers. If I take 0, 5, and 10 then add 100 to it, the average changes from 5 to 28.75. If I take 0, 0, 5, 5, 10, 10 then add 100 to it, the average changes from 5 to 18.571...."

That does not change the fact that half the revenue was from Mac and linux users which represent far less than half the market.

Lugaru was probably the only title I got from the bundles and played to completion. It's a kind of touchy, and killing wolves requires using sort of a cheap exploit. But overall it's some great action, best hand combat since Oni, and I look forward to the successor, Overgrowth.

Yeah, Lugaru is a respectable action game. The fact that anti-wolf tactics range from the honorable to the brutal to the downright broken only adds to the replay value. (Nevertheless, I hope that one particularly blatant exploit is not in Overgrowth.)

I recommend giving Penumbra another shot, but if you want to see a true masterpiece of a horror game then check out their later game, Amnesia. I'm glad the humble bundle introduced me to Frictional Games and I look forward to seeing what they make in the future.

yes. That's it. People bought the games for the sole purpose of making Windows users look bad.

Just restate this as "making Linux look attractive" and I think you'll be a whole lot closer.

Attracting devs greatly increases the chance of a product you'll find compelling. Look at what a few runaway hits did for iOS: it doesn't matter that the majority of products aren't particularly good - 90% of everything produced in every area of human endeavor isn't - but that enough gems are created.

I bought both bundles to support them. Other than Braid, which I played already on the 360, I'm not sure I've even spent any time playing these. Maybe a couple hours in Osmos or whatever, a few minutes of Mechanarium, but my main objective was to support them. I'll get around to playing the games later

I've been a linux user for about 3 years now, but the one thing that keeps me crawling back to Windows is the wide availability of quality games. When I heard that all games in the Humble Bundle were completely cross-platform, I couldn't resist. What's more, when I was having trouble installing Braid on my Mac I shot off a couple of emails and the Humble Bundle guys had it fixed within a day. That's the type of service I didn't know existed anymore.

When you Linux users are paying £100+ for your OS, £50 - £200+ for Software, and £20 - £30+ per videogame, and the hundreds of pounds/$$$ on hardware, THEN we'll see just how "generous" you lot are.

And besides, why should game devs spend millions on developing games when only the tiniest fraction of the PC market not only have Linux, but also have Linux AND the hardware to run the games. Afterall, it's normally Linux users telling Windows users how old/older basic PCs and Laptops run Linux better than Windows, and how Linux users don't need all this horsepower, so why would devs port Crysis 2 to Linux when only 0.1% of Linux users can actually run the thing ?

Lets face it, your OS is YEARS away from ever being a proper, user-friendly, noob-friendly desktop OS that just works. Windows 7 just works, an damn well. Games work best on this platform, so why mess around with Linux ?

This is a warm-fuzzy kind of story aimed squarely at idealists. At the same time it seems filled with wishful thinking and propagandized assertions.

As a linux admin, if it isn't pulling the wool over my eyes, I'm left wondering... just who is it that is falling for this idealized nonsense? I love linux, but come on, claiming that linux users are willing to pay more for software? Why not tell the whole story rather than distorting the truth?

I missed the first bundle but I bought the second. Kicked myself for never buying the first one. Imagine my surprise when a few days later I found that all the games from the first bundle had been added to the second bundle! I really hope there will be a third bundle this year. I'll be sure to pay double. :-D

As a linux admin, if it isn't pulling the wool over my eyes, I'm left wondering... just who is it that is falling for this idealized nonsense? I love linux, but come on, claiming that linux users are willing to pay more for software? Why not tell the whole story rather than distorting the truth?

It's not nonsense, a very significant number of Linux users paid far, far higher than Windows users to get the bundle, and they didn't have to do that. You could pay whatever you wanted, and for whatever reasons (probably lots of different ones) they paid quite a bit.

The average Windows user paid $6.74, the average Linux user paid $13.78, more than twice as much.

Now this doesn't mean that all Linux users will pay more for all software. But it does suggest that a large chunk of Linux _gamers_ will pay more for quality games that will run on Linux. There's no distorting the truth there, that IS the truth based on the actual figures off their website. Numbers were similar for the first bundle as well, they have the full raw data up on that (full raw data for bundle #2 isn't up yet because it's not fully available, they have to wait to make sure there's not any chargebacks and such.).

I got in on both bundles, and paid as much as I could (which sadly isn't very much nowadays). I haven't even played (or installed) most of the games, but I wanted to support what they were doing.

...And Cortex Command was a mess: very incomplete, hard to read, hard to control, and capricious....

For me it was the funnest. Yes the commands were a but wonky and I had to restart many times but once you pull off a mission it was very rewarding. I think the execution is lacking but overall for me this game has the most potential to be a classic. From what I read on the developers site this game will be one of those forever-in-betas, and that is too bad.

When you Linux users are paying £100+ for your OS, £50 - £200+ for Software, and £20 - £30+ per videogame, and the hundreds of pounds/$$$ on hardware, THEN we'll see just how "generous" you lot are.

And besides, why should game devs spend millions on developing games when only the tiniest fraction of the PC market not only have Linux, but also have Linux AND the hardware to run the games. Afterall, it's normally Linux users telling Windows users how old/older basic PCs and Laptops run Linux better than Windows, and how Linux users don't need all this horsepower, so why would devs port Crysis 2 to Linux when only 0.1% of Linux users can actually run the thing ?

Lets face it, your OS is YEARS away from ever being a proper, user-friendly, noob-friendly desktop OS that just works. Windows 7 just works, an damn well. Games work best on this platform, so why mess around with Linux ?

About 6 months ago, I built a new PC. It's a decent gaming system (Core i5-760 quad, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 470), not a low end system or spare parts junk box. I installed both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (since upgraded to 10.10).

Ubuntu "just worked" better than Windows 7.

It took me a few hours of downloading and installing various drivers on Win 7, including nVidia drivers. Seriously, GeForce isn't exactly an obscure product line, why didn't Win 7 install this automatically? It was initially using horribly slow default VGA drivers that made the system run like a slideshow. This is a quad core i5 system, and the Windows default video drivers couldn't handle moving a window around the screen without bogging down. There were also a bunch of the integrated devices on the motherboard were driverless until I ran the CD that came with the motherboard.

Ubuntu detected everything just fine. It defaulted to the open source nVidia drivers (which, while they don't compete very well with nVidia's proprietary drivers for performance, they are orders of magnitude better than the Win7 default VGA drivers), but immediately offered to automatically download and install nVidia's proprietary drivers if I wanted them. I didn't have to manually install any drivers at all.

Ubuntu also came with OpenOffice and a variety of other applications pre-installed. Despite having more and better pre-installed applications, Ubuntu somehow fits on a single CD, while Windows requires a DVD (not that DVD is a problem, but it just shows how space inefficient Windows is compared to Ubuntu).

Additional software, such as Gimp (way better that the Paint program that comes with Windows, actually more comparable to Photoshop in terms of features and capability) is easily installable through the Ubuntu Software Center. It's funny, people complain that it's "hard" to install software on Linux, but they don't seem to have trouble with the iOS App Store, which isn't that different.

|EDIT:| Windows updates were also much less user-friendly than Ubuntu updates, and it seemed that more of them needed to reboot the system (with Ubuntu, it was only Linux kernel updates that needed a reboot), and after each of the updates, Windows seemed to need to go through an updating (please don't turn me off) phase during both shutdown and the following bootup. Also, the Ubuntu update manager updates not just Ubuntu, but also third-party software, rather than each program having its own separate updater as in Windows, with its own different style of windows, which always seem to want to install some junkware toolbar in my browser unless I specifically opt out. |END EDIT|

PulseAudio (built into Ubuntu) also lets me easily redirect sound (either all sound, or individual applications) from one PC to another, so my laptop can can easily use the surround sound system on my desktop or my HTPC.

While there are certain things that Linux does differently from Windows (and thus a bit of a learning curve for Windows users making the transition) I see no evidence that Ubuntu is any less "noob-friendly" than Win 7. I know plenty of "noobs" who have trouble with Windows. After introducing some of them to Ubuntu, some find they like it better than Windows, others continue to prefer Windows.

I have my system set up to dual-boot, because I do occasionally use Win 7 for certain games, but in my experience native Linux games on Linux are less problematic than native Windows games on Windows. When you start getting into running Windows games on Wine, I agree that it's not always a user-friendly experience, but to be fair, it's much easier than running native Linux games on Windows.

For non-gaming activities, I never use Windows because Ubuntu is a much more user-friendly experience. This has nothing to do with cost of the OS (as I said, I actually bought a copy of Win7 for my PC), or about my system being too old or slow to run Windows well, it is entirely about preferring Ubuntu's interface.

When you Linux users are paying £100+ for your OS, £50 - £200+ for Software, and £20 - £30+ per videogame, and the hundreds of pounds/$$$ on hardware, THEN we'll see just how "generous" you lot are.

And besides, why should game devs spend millions on developing games when only the tiniest fraction of the PC market not only have Linux, but also have Linux AND the hardware to run the games. Afterall, it's normally Linux users telling Windows users how old/older basic PCs and Laptops run Linux better than Windows, and how Linux users don't need all this horsepower, so why would devs port Crysis 2 to Linux when only 0.1% of Linux users can actually run the thing ?

Lets face it, your OS is YEARS away from ever being a proper, user-friendly, noob-friendly desktop OS that just works. Windows 7 just works, an damn well. Games work best on this platform, so why mess around with Linux ?

Aside from making a ton of assumptions about the Linux population, you forget that a certain portion of those gamers with big rigs might be willing to game on Linux if their games were actually available for it. You're ignoring that OS choice generally revolves around the software you want to use.

Also, I'd consider it fair to say that most current Linux distributions have evolved to the point where they have pretty good, robust desktop environments (server-centric distros excluded), at this point it's mostly what you're used to. All operating systems have little annoyances.

I am glad this was such a success, and that Ars helped put it into motion! I admit I have barely touched any of the games, but I did purchase HB1 and HB2 in spite of having some of the games already. I liked the idea, the fact that the games were for all 3 platforms, and that it supported charities. Ended up buying 2 copies of each bundle to ensure my niece and nephew have access across the country. I am looking forward to supporting with HB3. Thank you all!

I actually missed the second bundle (dammit), but I still have the first. A while after I bought it, I got sent codes to it in Steam. Seriously? These guys, who had already done as they promised and open-sourced their code made a partnership with steam to distribute their game...and they gave away codes to it for free to anyone who bought it before. Try that from any other group. Hi, I bought your game at Best Buy but I lost the original game. Can you send me a Steam Code".

These guys deserve every bit of success they get (and I'm one of the people that Ars steered in their direction (I'd actually be interested to see how much referral traffic came from Ars to the bundles).

I was really glad they released the second bundle. It allowed me to make up for underpaying on the first. Again the customer service was the big thing. At the time of the first bundle, I was in school, and had literally $0.32 in my bank. I contacted them asking if there was a way to send more money after the bundle was done. Unfortunately he said, there wasn't, and to pay what I could. I'll be buying the next bundle as well, at above retail, again.

It's not like Linux users have lots of options to spend their money on. Of course they're going to spend more money on the very few products that are actually available on Linux, if only to make a statement.

I'm guessing you mean Cortex Command. That's kind of the rule for anything with a decent level editor. Depth wasn't one of my criticisms.

shturmovik wrote:

MoonShark wrote:

...And Cortex Command was a mess: very incomplete, hard to read, hard to control, and capricious....

For me it was the funnest. Yes the commands were a but wonky and I had to restart many times but once you pull off a mission it was very rewarding. I think the execution is lacking but overall for me this game has the most potential to be a classic. From what I read on the developers site this game will be one of those forever-in-betas, and that is too bad.

Oh I love the premise and the general design (ok maybe I'd kind of prefer top-down since it's strategic). But to say CC has rough edges would be an understatement. It's right there with Minecraft in its clunky incompleteness (don't get me wrong, I enjoy MC very much).

When you Linux users are paying £100+ for your OS, £50 - £200+ for Software, and £20 - £30+ per videogame, and the hundreds of pounds/$$$ on hardware, THEN we'll see just how "generous" you lot are.

And besides, why should game devs spend millions on developing games when only the tiniest fraction of the PC market not only have Linux, but also have Linux AND the hardware to run the games.

I love how some people are so offended by the very existence of the Humble Bundle. In the original HB2 article, haters were crying about "open-source indie propaganda", like it was a socialist plot. And they were gloating when Lugaru was ripped off in the Apple AppStore, because the code was open-sourced (but not the art assets). I don't get it, the devs are giving their customers, indie fans and Linux users, exactly what they want, isn't this pure capitalism?

When you Linux users are paying £100+ for your OS, £50 - £200+ for Software, and £20 - £30+ per videogame, and the hundreds of pounds/$$$ on hardware, THEN we'll see just how "generous" you lot are.

By that logic, Linux users are a perfect market for games since they can spend all the money they saved on a proprietary OS and other bits on games instead. Sounds like a great market opportunity to me!